Fang's Bites Media Notebook Edition No. 2
Saying goodbye to Rudy Martzke, reviewing Tom Brady and your Thanksgiving football weekend
Hi all!
Hope you’re all well. This is the second edition of the Fang’s Bites Media Notebook and it is free to all. You’ll get to read the notebooks for free this month and then I turn on the paywall in December. I wrote last month that the monthly price was $6.99 and that was an error. It will be $5.99 per month. I apologize for the error. I certainly do hope that you like what you see and subscribe. It’ll be greatly appreciated. And there is a 7-day free trial.
Let’s get to your notebook.
Rudy Martzke, sports media pioneer
To say Rudy Martzke paved the way for sports media writers would be like saying Michael Jordan was just a good basketball player. Rudy’s impact on sports journalism and sports media is wide-spread. He practically created the sports media beat for USA Today in 1982. I wrote an appreciation about Rudy for Awful Announcing.
If you missed it, Martzke died Friday at the age of 82. He had contracted COVID in October and then more recently, battled pneumonia and passed away due to complications. His son, Brett, revealed Rudy’s passing. It was quite unfortunate as Rudy and I had numerous occasions over the years. I’ll get into them later, but after retiring from USA Today in 2005, Rudy spent his time mostly in Florida.
But he got back into writing doing a semi-regular column for Daniel Ormsby’s Eye on Sky and Air Sports. It was the same Rudy doing his “Best Timing” or “Hustle Award.” His last column posted on October 28, 2024 and it carried his reviews, assignments and his thoughts on the weekend action.
For those who read Rudy regularly, his sports media columns were filled with reviews, breaking news and WWE-type wrestling quotes with networks going back and forth. Rudy certainly loved to get quotes from public relations flaks and he also loved to play networks off one another. Were they entertaining? Certainly, but were they also silly, however, sports media insiders absolutely loved reading the column, but the last thing they wanted was a “Dreaded Glitch Award” which was handed out when there were technical difficulties with a broadcast.
As previously mentioned, I had the opportunity to communicate with Rudy via Twitter, however, at the time, I really didn’t know if it was him. His account went by “Fake Rudy Martzke,” and because of that, I wasn’t sure if this was a real account or a parody. Daniel did inform me later that it was indeed the real Rudy.
Rudy would reach out to me on Twitter via Direct Message. He said he wanted to partner with me and he also let me know when a story that was published on Awful Announcing was actually broken by him. And he did this on more than one occasion. I would be working at my previous job at Apple Providence Place and then I would get a notification on my phone that it was Rudy reaching out. He then would inform me that a story on Awful Announcing was first broken on his Twitter account.
I think Rudy thought I was in charge of Awful Announcing (I get that a lot, but in reality, I’m not) and he would ask why AA didn’t credit him or if I was aware that he had broke the story before us. I would have to reply that I was at work and to contact the AA editors.
Because of this perceived slight, Rudy blocked the entire staff of AA and the Awful Announcing Twitter account in 2020. However, that changed earlier this year when Rudy unblocked all of us. And his contacting me to give him credit began anew, but I would make sure to retweet him to give him his credit.
However, my way of remembering Rudy is to harken back to his Friday columns during the NFL season which had the weekly announcing assignments and the regional viewing maps, which has been picked up by the site 506sports. No other reporter had this information until Rudy. Other reporters would later follow in providing the announcing assignments.
There were instances when I would also give an announcer a “Rudy Martzke Hustle Award” and tag him on Twitter to let him know I was thinking about him and to pay tribute.
Rudy’s legacy is the number of sports media columnists who followed him like Neil Best of Newsday, Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune, Jim Baker of the Boston Herald, Diane Pucin of the Los Angeles Times to current sports media writers Richard Deitsch and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, John Ourand of Puck and formerly of Sports Business Journal, Chad Finn of the Boston Globe, Jeff Agrest of the Chicago Sun-Times and websites like Awful Announcing, The Big Lead and Barrett Media.
The interest in sports media is greatly due to Rudy’s columns which appeared in USA Today from 1982-2005. He made sports media a viable newspaper beat with reporters across the country writing Friday columns previewing the weekend’s viewing on television.
Do I wish I had the opportunity to talk to him personally to pick his brain? Yes. Do I wish our Twitter exchanges weren’t so contentious? Yes as well, but I think Rudy was hoping that he would get the credit for his legacy and he’s certainly getting his due now.
As I said in my Awful Announcing column today, “There definitely won’t be another Rudy Martzke. Those of us who cover sports media raise a glass to his memory.”
Tom Brady is not “A” announcing material
There was big fanfare back in May 2022 when Fox signed Tom Brady to become its top NFL analyst. At the time, Greg Olsen was the “A” analyst for Fox after Joe Buck and Troy Aikman packed up to join ESPN’s Monday Night Football and Kevin Burkhardt and Olsen became the “A” team for Fox,
Olsen got a lot of support because he had proven himself to be an excellent analyst and Brady was an unknown quantity. Olsen and Burkhardt called Super Bowl LVII and were greatly praised. Olsen knew that Brady would be taking over for him and said he try to do his best making it hard for Fox to replace him. Now that we have a 12-game sample, I can say that Olsen is missed on the “A” team for Fox.
If you watched Sunday’s Dallas-Washington game which had Joe Davis and Olsen, then San Francisco-Green Bay with Burkhardt and Brady, you could certainly hear the difference.
Olsen was tremendous in the 4th quarter which turned into a wild affair as the Cowboys and Commanders combined for 41 points (41!). He and Davis were totally on top of the special teams issues that were plaguing both teams. And after Washington scored what appeared to be a tying touchdown in the last minute of the game, Olsen was quick to remind viewers that Commanders kicker Austin Siebert had missed an extra point earlier in the game. And lo and behold, Siebert missed the tying extra point.
Olsen was on top of trends, he was precise and he has meshed with Davis to become an elite broadcast team in just 12 games.
As for Brady, he is at best at “C” team announcer. He speaks in clichés and he hasn’t gotten into the habit of making concise points in between plays. There were a few occasions where he was still making his point as the action was going to break, a no-no for any announcer.
A major point for me listening to an analyst is that I get learn something from them every game. I get that from Olsen, Tony Romo (as much as he’s maligned, he still steps up like during the Chicago-Washington Hail Mary game when he pointed at a sideline pass before the game-winning TD was a big factor), and even lower-tiered analysts like Tiki Barber.
And in other sports, I’m learning something new from Rebecca Lobo, Lori Lindsey, Eddie Olczyk and Darren Pang.
Brady isn’t at that level yet and while Fox is betting on name recognition, he is not an elite analyst yet. As much as they’re removed from their playing days, Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth can still teach viewers and are on top of trends.
I want Brady to be stronger on his opinions of the game. He’s telling us what we just saw and not going into the behind the scenes machinations that made Romo a star in his first two years of broadcasting.
And that’s the issue here. Before Tony Romo arrived at CBS in 2017, analysts worked their way up to the “A” team or at least got reps with the “B” or “C” team. Aikman worked with Daryl Johnston and Dick Stockton in 2001 before joining Joe Buck and Cris Collinsworth as Fox replaced Pat Summerall and John Madden the following season.
Romo was so spectacular in his first season predicting plays that ESPN tried to lure him to Monday Night Football and then signed Jason Witten hoping he would be their Romo, but that was not the case.
Now networks are hoping they can strike lightning like they CBS did with Romo, but he is more an anomaly than the norm. Brady will call Super Bowl LIX in February and then perhaps beyond. Who knows if Brady will want to continue, but right now, he’s not at the level of Aikman, Collinsworth, Olsen, Romo, Trent Green, Daryl Johnston and even the aforementioned Barber.
And there is the issue of him being a part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders which prevents him from seeing practices and partaking in the production meetings with the teams. For analysts, this is a way to get some inside information from teams, however, Brady’s role with the Raiders precludes this.
It will perhaps take another season or two for Brady to get to that level. In the meantime, we’ll watch him grow into the job.
Your Thanksgiving football viewing menu
Thanksgiving is traditionally the time for football. Thanksgiving Day wil give us three NFL games, one each on CBS, Fox and NBC. Black Friday will have a big slate of college football and then Amazon’s Black Friday NFL game.
Here are the NFL games for Thanksgiving Day, November 28, and the announcers (all times Eastern):
Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions — CBS, 12:30 p.m.
Jim Nantz/Tony Romo//Tracy Wolfson
New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys — Fox, 4:30 p.m.
Kevin Burkhardt/Tom Brady//Erin Andrews//Tom Rinaldi
Miami Dolphins at Green Bay Packers — NBC/Telemundo/Universo, 8:20 p.m.
NBC: Mike Tirico/Jason Garrett//Melissa Stark//Telemundo/Universo: Miguel Gurwitz/Rolando Cantú/Ariana Figuera
For Friday, November 29, the NFL Black Friday game and some of the college games. Announcers are listed where available:
Oklahoma State at Colorado — ABC, noon
Minnesota at Wisconsin — CBS, noon
Mississippi State at Mississippi — ABC, 3:30 p.m.
Nebraska at Iowa — NBC/Peacock, 7:30 p.m.
Las Vegas Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs — Amazon Prime Video, 3 p.m.
Al Michaels/Kirk Herbstreit//Kaylee Hartung
Holiday Thoughts
As we go into Thanksgiving, I want to thank you for reading this second edition of the Media Notebook. I’ll hope to be back with a Black Friday edition and again, it’ll be free to all.
Be safe if you’re traveling this weekend. Don’t eat too much and I’ll see you back here later this week.